Will & Viola
by Lost Dove
Summary: A work of three parts. Thoughts of William Shakespeare and Viola de Lesseps' at various points in the movie. Now finished.
1. Sweet Sessions of Silent Thought

A/N This is basically my attempt at communicating just how much I love the movie "Shakespeare in Love", it shows Viola and Will after the dance because they just can't stop thinking about each other (my how I love love stories) SO yes please r/r and tell me if you want me to do another please thank you!  
  
Disclaimer: I never thought up the movie Shakespeare in Love. The title of this piece is from one of Shakespeare's sonnets. If I had thought up the movie Shakespeare in Love my life would be complete, just as if I was Shakespeare (which I never could be) I would not be bothering with a FanFiction website. So although I often communicate with Shakespeare on the other side (kidding....kidding......) I did not think up the storyline!!!  
-Viola-  
  
Oh God, what strange possession caused me to go there yesterday? I am sure he saw through my disguise, why else would he run after me through the streets of London like he did? I must be mad, for not only have I done that but I will go back once more, as Thomas Kent, and play the role of whoever he wishes me to, because of the dance last night.  
  
How do I explain just what happened last night? When our eyes met over our hands and to the wistful sound of the music we slowly turned and turned, his eyes piercing my soul, and I could only look back into his fathomless eyes and pretend that I did not know him, even when I was sure he recognized me. I have no boundaries anymore, I would climb the highest mountain, cross the deepest sea, or overcome whatever hardship was flung my way. And why?  
  
I know only this: that the strange burning I feel inside my soul now that is like a flame has suddenly sprung up where before there was only ashes intoxicates, and I feel giddy, and joyful. I am in love, that forbidden feeling that once upon a time I wished for in my chambers with my nurse. I wished for poetry, for adventure, and for love, and she laughed, for love is an unheard-of thing today. What fool would marry for love, it is joked, and I must bite my tongue, for inside my idealistic heart there is but one wish - to know once and for all the true feeling of passion eternal in my life, a passion that will not fade but instead bear on and on and on, forevermore.  
  
Will Shakespeare holds a part of me I never knew I had, and I shall never have again, one that was not present till I saw him and then I gave it to him before I myself even knew it. To think of him is sweet pain, a pain because of the things I know he will never know, and the sweetness because he is my love and nothing that goes with him could ever not be sweet. To see him again I will do anything - risk my parents' wrath if they were here.  
  
Wessex. How can I love Wessex? The man is not crude, but does not possess a soul, and he looks upon me as chattel, this I know all too well. His words cannot compare to my dear Will's, nor can his being, for my Will is beloved in every way and Wessex is not, Wessex wants me only for my money and if I happen to be fair that is all the better for him. It is hard to describe...if I could spend only one more day on earth I would spend it with Will and that day would be better than all the rest of them put together, but if I must spend a lifetime with Wessex when it is with Will that my heart resides, can I survive?  
  
I will bind my breasts, and wear a boy's wig and when I go later in this day, any part I play will be ecstasy, be it the boy that runs on to collect the sword and speaks only an "Ay", for being near him who lights my mind will never pall for me. I loved his work, but now I love the man behind them, and I have only seen him twice.  
-Will-  
  
I feel filled with an inspiration that before has never lit upon my fingertips. When I put pen to paper now, the words seem to fly out, so eager are they to alight upon my parchment. What vision did I see last night? What heavenly goddess had left her chair in Heaven to grace the hall of that dance? For what mortal being could possess such eyes, eyes that light the world with their life and beauty, and a smile that leaves no room for rivalry, and hair that falls like a golden cascade down shoulders of creamy alabaster.  
  
I fear my heart is no longer mine, but this is such sweet captivity that every moment seems a new drop of sunlight glistening upon her fair face. Never have I felt this way, never, and those paltry emotions felt for Rosalind and all the rest are merely fools' gold next to the treasure that I have discovered. And therefore never have I written this way, never felt as if my heart's being was pouring out onto the page, with such raw love that I could almost touch it.  
  
I love her not only for her beauty, but for what I saw looking back at me from those eyes, those eyes that know so much yet still reach out to embrace life, eyes that find in you your weakness and bathe it in a cool soft gaze. Eyes that at once are gentle, yet snapping; liquid, and loving, and beauty in itself that shall never fade; eyes that looked across at mine from over our hands in a way that seemed to breathe faster, if eyes could breathe. They faltered not a moment from their fixed point, those blessed minutes as our eyes read each other's souls. Those eyes have taken my soul with their thirst for life, and their need to live just once a life that has been denied.  
  
Today I am inspired not by the Muses, but one more fair than those, and mark my words, even if she should never glance my way again, or I never look upon her eyes again, she shall live on in Juliet, and I will not forget her, for even love that is denied is kept secret in a yearning heart.  
  
I would brave the anger of the Lord Wessex just to see her again. 


	2. Will these hands ne'er be clean?

Author's Note: Once again, this is a scene from that beautiful movie "Shakespeare in Love" which I adore. Not really a scene, but more thoughts that they might have been thinking. I have decided to do a sort of trilogy-ish thing with three scenes. This is the second. This scene does not take place at the same time, but the two ideas or thoughts that they are thinking are linked. William Shakespeare's thoughts are after he discovers that Christopher Marlowe was killed. As a bit of background for you, Will had told the Earl of Wessex, Viola's future husband, that he was Marlowe, and believes that this lie is responsible for his death. Viola de Lesseps, on the other hand believes that Will is dead, as Wessex told her that the man who had died was that who had visited her.   
  
Disclaimer: Sadly enough, I did not think up the movie "Shakespeare in Love," as I have always had this yearning to have an Oscar. Viola de Lesseps, the Earl of Wessex, or Christopher Marlowe do not belong to me. Technically, Shakespeare belongs to neither me nor the creators of "Shakespeare in Love," but that's beside the point. This piece that I have written is merely my attempt at a tribute to the gorgeous movie of wit and moving tragedy that is "Shakespeare in Love" (And should anyone even consider suing, please remember the wonderful plug I just willingly gave to your stunning movie *smiles prettily*.) Also, in Will's fifth paragraph, "April's first-born flowers" is from one of his sonnets....just don't remember which one. I have taken the liberty of using quotes before both their passages....their sources are marked. The title is from Macbeth.   
  
Will & Viola Part 2 (  
  
-Will-  
"It is I who killed him! God forgive me, God forgive me!"   
-William Shakespeare, "Shakespeare in Love"  
  
Dead. Kit Marlowe is dead. It seems like only yesterday we were seated in that bar, and I admitted to him just how mired in my own promises I was. He was kind to me, gave me Mercutio's name, and how have I repaid him? By cowardly ridding myself of a rival! Kit, oh, you had so much left to do with your life, you could have written another masterpiece, like your Faustus...."Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" God, the times I have heard that recited for me and wished that it had never been written, and its author never born. And now it is so, and I never realized that graveness of life ceased to be.  
  
How can a life be snuffed out so quickly? And a flame so bright as Marlowe's, one that should have continued burning for still a while. And all because of me. Guilt, the guilt presses down on me in suffocating waves, I cannot speak, I cannot breathe, I am so wretched a man as has ever lived. I can find in myself only the strength to fall to my knees and implore. I did not intentionally mean to take his life, I was merely trying to save my own soul - but now that unnoble act has cost an innocent soul, one that did not deserve to die.   
  
I am so afraid. Afraid of what God's well-deserved judgement will bring down upon me, and even though I feel as if my life should be taken in recompense, who can not shake in the shadow of impending doom? I have lost control of my thoughts, they flit wildly from one moment to the next, yet each containing the same final message - that I am a murderer, that my soul is doomed to rest in hell eternally! My guilt is like a drum, pounding in my head, something I cannot ignore, nor put to the back of my mind to entertain other things.   
  
I sink to my knees in the ancient plea for life, for a second chance, a renewed attempt at living. Life, which seemed so ordinary before, is now a precious thing, like water in a desert, fire in a blizzard, something that must be kept and savoured and treasured. I pray, o how I pray. Forgiveness, Lord, please, grant unto me the divine forgiveness. I was not devout until I saw how I might be punished, but now I implore, I beg.   
  
I must stay alive, must remain on this earth to still see April's first-born flowers, to see the beauty of the day and the night, to still breathe the air that is as ambrosia to my soul. And most crucial, I must stay for Viola. Loving her is like being able to soar high above the clouds and not once having to fear that my wings will be clipped and I will be sent crashing to the ground. It is like having a fresh breeze from the sea grace my skin after a humid summer's day, but she is the summer's day too, and she is indeed everything pure and beautiful in my life, and out of it, and I had never hoped for anything like this, for I could never have imagined it.   
  
-Viola-  
"When I thought you dead, I did not care about all the plays that will never come, only that I would never see your face."  
-Viola de Lesseps, "Shakespeare in Love"  
  
Gone, Oh my Lord, he is gone. Gone from this earth, never to return. And at the hand of that who I am promised to. Is a part of me taken from myself, torn from my very soul that I feel like this? But yes, Will had my heart, and now my heart rests with him, in the dirty mud of a tavern-side road! What a place for such a man to rest, a man who held my heart and his pen with such masterfullness as will never be equalled.   
  
How can I even think the course of my life if I cannot see his face, hear his words, touch his lips, merely be in his presence for just a few more short minutes? I knew our time together was precious, but I never imagined it was this brief. The hours spent lying with each other, talking, as his sweet words washed over me like rays of pure golden rain, seem as those out of a dream, a dream out of which I have rudely been awoken.   
  
I will not allow him to be dead, to have passed to a place where he is not within my reach. I would not care if he did not pen another word in his life, that is not what I am mourning for now, it is for the Will that I knew, and I alone knew. Must I go on? Cannot the gods strike down their thunder and take me too? For I cannot bear to live a life if it is not with him, nay, if it is not even knowing that he who I love still walks the streets of London, and Stratford-upon-Avon. Even if he was still alive and I could see him no longer, it would be more bearable than this, I would know that he lived on, and maybe even thought of me, even as a passing, fleeting memory.   
  
I cannot cry, I cannot weep, I cannot grieve openly, for we should never have met, we should never have spoken, never have done what we did. But that we did do those forbidden things is proof that miracles to happen upon this luckless world, and that even we lowly mortals can be touched by that which is held by the gods in the palm of their hands.   
  
And to think I left his side without a word of love, a word of passion, even a touch, a glance to convey to him what he is to me. He died thinking I hated him for having a wife. God, I could not care less if he had a goat for a wife, he is -was God help me- still the Will that I loved and cherished, still love and cherish.   
  
I must stumble blindly through my pain, for I do not see how life without Will could ever be light again. 


	3. Farewell.....

Author's Note: Yes, this is the last one. Quite honestly, I've never loved writing anything as much as I loved writing this. I breathe Shakespeare, I'm a bit of a freak, and this movie has been my favorite since forever and ever and ever. This is my favorite work ever, perhaps because I felt so close to Will and Viola when I wrote this. I've been putting off writing this last one for a while, because it's this one that will define the whole thing, as this is the most important scene/mood in the movie. Thank you for reading.   
  
Disclaimer: I own neither Viola de Lesseps nor William Shakespeare nor Earl Wessex. A Daughter's Duty refers back to the movie Shakespeare in Love, which I do not own. The reference to a stolen season is as well.   
  
-Viola-  
I am resolved. What can I do but leave him, my darling, my completion, the only one who has ever heard my secret dreams and hopes? The last thing in the world my heart wants to do is put an ocean between my soul and his? Although our love can cross the seas, our love can span those miles of blue divide, our souls can still meet, but how can I live without his face, his breath, his words, his very being? I do not wish to go, but I must. I must for myself, and for him, though our very essences cry out in agony at the separation. What will Wessex do to my lover if he loses his prize and his money? What else can I do? I am as trapped as a caged bird, one that has been taught to obey, and only dreams of a life of her own.   
  
To leave Will....to say farewell, and for what will seem like a thousand years never once reach across the miles that divide us and reunite? But I can do nothing else. I have to leave Will, Will, the only one who has ever understood me, who has ever cared that he knows the very secrets of my soul, and who has treated them with such tenderness that they became his. When I think of my life as it is to be, I stare it on with a resolution that does not seem to be my own, a resolution that time and tradition has bred into me, but behind that, a part of me is weeping, weeping, and those tears will never stop. It will be a life of obedience, a life of mundanity, a life dictated by Lord Wessex. All I will have is my thoughts, my memories of those three perfect weeks, for my souvenirs cannot be taken away from me. When Will and I sat by the water that day after I thought he was dead, I told him that I had seen our end, and that it would come. Throughout those hours of perfection, there was always a part of me that knew that this too would pass, this too would fade into what had to be done. My soul cries out at leaving, my heart weeps, but my mind knows their fate.   
  
I can remember all those sweet eternities we had, eternities that seem like fleeting dreams now. They seem more real to me than this world I live in now, though. The nights we spent, the recitals where every word I said was to him, and every word I spoke had been written for me. Life will never be any more melodious than those days, more content in its gentle yet passionate perfection.   
  
But my duty as a daughter says I must go. But on my life, if I could go back in time and decide whether I was to meet Will Shakespeare, and whether I was to fall as deeply and irrevokably in love with him as is ever possible, and whether I was to make this decision, I would never hesitate in my reply.   
  
A stolen season can still be remembered, unless it is forsaken. And so, here is where I must part and bid the only one whose heart beats with mine farewell.   
  
Farewell, my darling, farewell. Please, think of me sometimes, do not forget me, me who you hold in the cradle of your hand. Do not linger on me, but still remember....  
  
-Will-  
I have no words. And for the first time, I do not desire them. My soul was what inflamed me to write before, so how can I continue when that soul is gone, gone far across the oceans to a place I cannot divine? To feel like this, like nothing in my life will ever matter again, as if I have lost the very thing that held me on this earth. She was an angel, it seems, something that came down from a place that I could never have trod, and now she must return to her home, someplace too far away for me to reach, someplace beyond my stature in life.   
  
For a few short moments in my trivial life, I stumbled upon what life in all its perfection must be, but now they have slipped beyond my grasp, never to be regained. I was never meant to have those instants, it was only my impudence and temerity that brought them into my grasp.   
  
If only we had ever had a chance. I would challenge that Earl Wessex who destroys my very heart with his greedy clutches, but Viola would never hear of it, she would never allow me. She can look past her feelings and hold her judgement only in her mind, a talent I do not possess. I would fight this separation with every bit of strength in my frame, anything to escape the cold life that is closing in on me without her divine presence. I can feel its breath already, seeming to freeze that very spark that guides me. O God, to live without her, to wake everyday knowing that another possesses her,I have not the endurance nor the power to go on. What can I do to fill this void, to somehow end this aching emptiness that encompasses my very being?  
  
As she turned from me after that one last embrace, running down the hall, I knew that she knew that if she stayed longer she would not have the strength to leave. The one last glimpse of her fleeting form is all I have now, is the last moment I will hold forever in my memory. Her last words, "Write me well." Nothing in me wants to write, to pen another play that is not a tragedy that reads what my soul experiences, but the instincts in me are all-consuming; when she mentioned Orsino, I had to begin to explore his possibilities, and elucidate in my mind upon what he could do, and be, and love.   
  
If my darling will not stay with me, then I will fulfil her last request of me - I will not give up writing for her. I will, rather, write every word that flows from my fingers to her, every letter that is curved from the guidance of my hand will be dedicated to her everlasting memory, to the love that we both feel. Not a play, not a sonnet, not a poem, not the most trivial of enterprises will go unpledged to Viola. Beginning with a comedy, by William Shakespeare. What irony is there, a comedy written by the most lovelorn fool in the entire country. But the heroine will be Viola, a lady not like the others, who forges her way in a new country after a shipwreck, holding her own every step of the way, and enver once loking back and regretting her circumstances.   
  
Will Shakespeare. Will anyone ever fathom the past of mine they do not know? Will Viola's true place in my history go unnoted, will she ever grace a page with my name beside it? But she does not need fame, nor the tarnished medals of public recognition, she shines as clear as a drop of moonlight on a dark night, as silvery and pure as a unicorn's tear.   
  
Goodbye, my love, a thousand times goodbye. There were never words to say the depth of love I hold for you.  
  
And I will write you well.... 


End file.
